Science lessons we can’t fail

The coal-fired Plant Scherer, one of the nation's top carbon dioxide emitters, stands in the distance in Juliette. President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. from the landmark Paris climate agreement, striking a major blow to worldwide efforts to combat global warming and distancing the country from its closest allies abroad.

Photo: Branden Camp, Associated Press

After getting pregnant, I felt like I had a front-row seat to a daily science show. Week by week, the twins progressed from poppy seed to grape to papaya to honeydew melon. At night, my husband and I listened to their rapid heartbeats with a hand-me-down home Doppler.

After they were born, we collected more data on human development. Weren’t scientists always comparing identical twins in their experiments, to deduce whether certain traits were more heavily influenced by genetics or the environment? Though our twins are fraternal and our studies didn’t meet a double-blind standard, we could see — in that eternal debate — how much nature determined them.

The twins, with their boundless curiosity, prompt even more science lessons.

“Do whales have fingers?” Gege asked after dinner.

Yes, I said, remembering a chart that showed the whale’s five finger bones inside the flipper, and the connection I’d felt with creatures who seemed like cousins, albeit distant ones.

The twins are fascinated by the food chain, food webs and how we are interconnected as predator and prey. If one link breaks, the impact ripples up and down the chain. We’ve taught them the importance of saving energy, recycling and not littering, to preserve the environment — our local responses to global problems.

Lately, the twins have been most interested in mammals, because they’ve learned that they are those, too, with common characteristics: warm-blooded, with skin or hair, and nursing from their mothers. We’ve been watching videos online of various mammal births, including cheetahs, platypuses, giraffes, deer and elephants.

The other day, the twins stared wide-eyed at the screen, as the elephant calf plopped several feet, followed by a gush of bloody fluid. I could tell they were concerned for the baby’s safety.

“The baby’s OK — see?” I said. The mother gently nudged her calf with her feet until it started to move on its own. It’s awe-inspiring every time, to see the next generation emerge covered in muck, about to take a first breath — a next generation that we must strive to protect.

I explained that video cameras didn’t exist in the time of dinosaurs, but what a video it could have been! Picture the tiny horn, pecking away at the shell until it breaks apart and a baby triceratops takes its first steps in the humid air.

Each day, the twins ask what’s a mammal, what’s an omnivore, herbivore and carnivore, relentlessly classifying and categorizing, to make sense of the world and their place in it. They spout facts about superlatives, about the fastest, strongest, the one and only.

“What’s the tallest mountain in the world?” Didi asked while we were walking to summer camp.

“Everest,” I said.

“What’s the shortest?”

“There’s a minimum height,” I said. “If it’s too short, it’s a hill.”

“It’s called Hill-erest,” Didi said, riffing off of Everest.

I’m immersed in the natural world in ways that I haven’t been since I was a kid, in ways that renew my wonder. The twins’ appetite for science stands in stark contrast to those who deny climate change — even as an iceberg the size of Delaware breaks off the Antarctic ice shelf, and scorching temperatures break records.

This summer, President Trump withdrew from the Paris climate agreement; Vice President Mike Pence vowed to put Americans on Mars, part of NASA’s shift away from climate change research; and Energy Secretary Rick Perry claimed ocean waters are the primary “control knob” of the Earth’s temperature, not man-made greenhouse gases.

I was telling another mother about how disheartened I felt by the administration’s willful denial of science.

Someday, she pointed out, our children would grow up and retain their passion for science. She was implying they could be agents of environmental change. I want to believe that, but fear what’s going to happen if we don’t act more quickly, more urgently.

Even though we’re a divided country, more than half of Americans agree that climate change is caused by humans. A new survey suggests that a quarter of us believe that providing a better life for our children and grandchildren is the most important reason to reduce global warming, and about 16 percent want to prevent the destruction of life on this planet.

“What does ‘extinct’ mean?” Didi asked.

“To go away, to die off. The dinosaurs went extinct, after the meteor hit,” I reminded him. “The dust blocked the sun, plants couldn’t grow, and the dinosaurs had nothing to eat.”

“Couldn’t they eat each other?” Didi asked mischievously.

Even as I laughed with him, I wished that the extinction of most life on the planet would remain a history lesson — and not a prophecy.

Vanessa Hua is a former reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Examiner, the Hartford Courant and the Los Angeles Times. At The Chronicle, she launched an investigation that led to the resignation of the California secretary of state and prompted investigations by the FBI.

She’s won a number of journalism awards from groups including the Asian American Journalist Association and the Society of Professional Journalists. She also won the James Madison Freedom of Information Award.

Her short-story collection, “Deceit and Other Possibilities,” won the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. Her debut novel, “A River of Stars” received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, and her next novel, “The Sea Palaces,” is forthcoming from Ballantine.